Rights crusader wins defamation battle with Ni-Chaneruhttp://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060121p2a00m0na009000c.html
IWAMIZAWA, Hokkaido -- Ni-Chaneru's operator has been ordered by a
court here to pay 1.1 million yen compensation to foreigners' rights
campaigner Debito Arudou for a defamatory posting on the country's most
popular online bulletin board.

The Iwamizawa Branch of the Sapporo District Court found that messages
posted on Ni-Chaneru saying Arudou was a white supremacist were
defamatory and ordered the plaintiff be compensated and the offending
posts erased.

"(The operator) has a responsibility to take appropriate steps, such as
the removal of unlawful postings," Presiding Judge Takuro Senga said as
he handed down the ruling.

Despite siding with Arudou, however, Senga halved the amount of
compensation originally sought by the 41-year-old university associate
professor from Nanporo, Hokkaido.

"It wasn't as though the operator of the site had actually posted the messages," Senga said.
Arudou hailed the ruling.

"I understand we need freedom of expression, but there is no freedom to
lie or hurt people. I think it was important that the court recognized
this," he said.

Court records showed that on 12 different occasions from March to
December 2004, messages were posted on Ni-Chaneru boards slurring
Arudou and calling him a white supremacist.

In December 2004, Arudou told the operator of Ni-Chaneru that the
messages were defamatory and demanded that they be removed. When the
demand was ignored, Arudou sued.

Arudou was born David Aldwinckle in the United States. He became a
Japanese citizen in 2000. He has since campaigned against
discrimination, most notably when taking on the Otaru Municipal
Government and a bathhouse operator in Otaru, Hokkaido, after
foreigners were refused entry to the premises. (Mainichi)

Unlike their more vocal colleagues, who are highly visible in their
huge sound trucks, blaring slogans at full volume, Net uyoku are
usually anonymous and rely on a computer mouse rather than a megaphone
to get their point across.

Since the late 1990s, Net uyoku have flooded electronic bulletin boards
with their views on issues such as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's
visits to Yasukuni Shrine and Japan's wartime role.

Since 2002, they have often vented their spleen at North Korea over its
abduction of Japanese nationals, and at Japanese who swoon over South
Korean dramas.

The Internet bulletin board Channel
2 ("Ni-channeru"), which allows anonymous messages, is the
best known home of the Net uyoku.

Between 1 million and 2.5 million messages are posted daily, and most
of those dealing with politics or Japan's relations with other
countries in East Asia reflect views that range from moderately
conservative to far right.

After repeated attempts to get Channel 2 to remove the offending posts
were ignored by site founder, Hiroyuki Nishimura, Arudou sued for libel
at the Sapporo District Court's Iwamisawa branch.

Nishimura ignored all orders to appear in court and on Jan. 20 the
judge ruled summarily in Arudou's favor, saying his honor had been
illegally infringed upon by information that affected society's view of
him. The court ordered Channel 2 to take down the offending posts and
to pay 1.1 million yen in compensation. The judge also ordered the IP
addresses of those who posted the offensive messages to be made public.

But so far, Nishimura has not complied with the order.

Attempts to reach Nishimura proved unsuccessful -- he did not respond
to e-mail inquiries from The Japan Times, and no phone number for him
or Channel 2 could be obtained. Arudou's lawyer, Toshiteru Shibaike,
said his office has also been unable to contact Nishimura.

Such a lack of communication, legal experts say, illustrates the
problem of trying to sue Internet bulletin boards like Channel 2 and
the Net uyoku who post on them.

"What can you do if you win a civil suit for libel against one of these
Internet bulletin boards and they simply ignore the court ruling? Not
much," said Tetsuya Kimura, an Osaka-based human rights attorney.
"Because it's a civil suit and not a criminal suit, police probably
won't get involved."

In 2004, he found himself under attack on Channel 2 and elsewhere after
he drew a cartoon portraying Imperial Japanese troops carrying out the
Rape of Nanking. To fight back, Motomiya's supporters started their own
electronic bulletin board, to discuss the tactics of Net uyoku.

But if Channel 2 is home to crude, anonymous and libelous rants,
Channel Sakura is the place where Net uyoku post more thoughtful and
polite messages. Channel Sakura posts require a pseudonym at least,
although many posters use their own names, or the name of their group.

Channel Sakura states on its Web site that it is dedicated to
preserving traditional Japanese culture. It opposes revising the
Imperial House Law to allow a woman to serve as a reigning empress, and
supports a wide variety of rightwing causes.

Posts on its bulletin board often reflect the views of one of Channel
Sakura's biggest supporters, the Japan Conference.

This powerful nongovernmental organization was formed in 1997 and
claims 500,000 members nationwide. It works closely with lawmakers to
promote policy issues dear to conservatives and many with rightwing
views. Foreign Minister Taro Aso is a former chairman, and former
Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Takeo Hiranuma is the current
chairman of a group of lawmakers that communicates regularly with the
NGO.

Unlike Channel 2, personal attacks are rarely seen on Channel Sakura,
and when individuals are named, it is usually a politician whose
policies the poster disagrees with.

But although Channel 2 gets a lot of mainstream media attention for its
extreme comments, Internet experts believe the more sophisticated Net
uyoku of the kind who go to sites like Channel Sakura are more
influential with policymakers.

"Issues discussed on the more sophisticated rightwing Web sites reflect
the views of rightwing politicians and bureaucrats more than those of
the anonymous Net uyoku," said Junko Ikegawa, an Osaka-based freelance
writer who writes on Internet issues. "These sites spread their views
quickly among like-minded Japanese, creating a politically active,
vocal support network of rightwing activists on whom rightwing
politicians rely."

(Press Release, freely forwardable)
I've kept quiet about this for quite awhile, but now's the time:

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
JAPANESE INTERNET BBS "2-CHANNEL"
IGNORES REPEATED REQUESTS TO REMOVE DEFAMATORY DATA
HAS BEEN SUED FOR LIBEL BY ARUDOU DEBITO
LAWSUIT DECISION DUE JANUARY 20
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
By Arudou Debito
January 18, 2006

====================================SUMMARY: Japan's prominent Internet BBS "2-Channel" (http://www.2ch.net)
system
has been sued for libel by Arudou Debito from April 2005, for not
removing untrue and defamatory messages from its database despite
repeated requests. Representatives for 2-Channel ignored all
communications (even those from the Hokkaido Iwamizawa District Court),
and did not appear in court. A verdict is due on Friday, January
20. In a relatively new medium in Japan, without much legal
precedent governing libel, this case promises to create some legal
precedent regarding Japan's cavalier rules of expression on the
Internet, ruling on the responsibility for unedited Internet bulletin
boards to receive and maintain anonymous information which is
untruthful and impugning of an individual's character.
====================================

FACTS OF THE CASE:

Japan's prominent Internet bulletin board system (BBS),
"2-Channel" (pronounced "ni-channeru"), has been sued for defamation of
character (meiyo kison) by Plaintiff Arudou Debito.

A system accessed by millions of Japanese every day, 2-Channel is a
valuable forum for news, gossip, and information you cannot find in any
of the established press. (For example, if there is a murder case
where a minor is the suspect, the name cannot by law be made
public. Within hours, however, it will be on 2-Channel somewhere,
sometimes even with photos, until the police have moderators remove
it.) 2-Channel is a wild place, and anyone who believes
Japanese communication strategies are constrained by strict rules of
decorum and manners will see what people do when liberated by anonymity.

Even while the US was massacring the 20,000 Iraqis who put up no
resistance, Aldwinckle was saying things about Japan's
bathhouses. His sort of attitude is normal in the US, where White
Supremacists like Aldwinckle support both racial discrimination
policies and wars of invasion.

What American White David Aldwinckle claims:
1) There is no problem with non-White people being massacred in the tens of thousands as long as it benefits American Whites.
2) In a country as inferior as Japan, it's perfectly fine for
unqualified American Whites like Aldwinckle to take on English
instructor positions and receive preferential treatment.
3) It is perfectly all right for a degree of racial discrimination against non-Whites to happen if it benefits American Whites.
4) But it is completely unacceptable for inferior races such as Japanese to discriminate against American Whites...
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(More examples below in Japanese within documents submitted to Iwamizawa District Court.)

It goes on in the same vein for a page or so. And this was not
the only post. In fact, whenever any thread came up that involved
foreign countries or foreigners (i.e. nothing to do with the Otaru
Case), this person would cut and paste the same post in it, thread
after thread, for saturation bombing. You can see how
saturated by Googling "arudouinkuru" (my former last name in katakana,
small i), and "iraku" (katakana for Iraq). At last count (and
this is down from a few thousand a year ago), the copy, pasting, and
requoting on to other sites is up to 471 sites (up from 450 January
1). I usually ignore stuff like this, but I heard about this
activity back in 2004 because several of my friends (many of those in
the human-rights community, whose opinions I value) pointed it out, and
asked what I had actually said about Iraq to inspire such
comments! After all, where there's smoke, there must be fire...!

Needless to say, I said no such things, and I told the 2-Channel
moderators on several occasions between November 2004 and February 2005
to delete the posts and reveal the IP address of the poster. At
no time, however, did I receive a response from 2-Channel, nor did the
posts I referred to disappear. Registered enquiries to
2-Channel's owner, a Mr Nishimura Hiroyuki, from my lawyers were
returned unopened (my lawyer even went to Tokyo to check if he resides
at that address; he does), and when we finally filed suit last April in
Iwamizawa District Court, there was no acknowledgement whatsoever (even
court communiques were returned unopened) and no court appearances.

In a Small Claims Court (Kan'i Saibansho), a no-show would result in
automatic victory for the Plaintiff. In this case, a Civil Court
(Minji Saibansho) will probably rule the same way. The issue is
the assessment of damages. 2-Channel has actually been sued in
the past (by businesses, who saw their business drop after malicious
rumors appeared there) and lost, being forced to pay plaintiffs
damages. In my case, it's hard to assess the damage concretely in
money. There is also the issue of me being a "public person" (koujin),
an obvious target for criticism and therefore not quite as protectable
as a completely-private individual.

Yes, I argued in court last month, I am legally probably a public
person by now. But the freedom of speech enabling one to
criticize does not enable one to lie, in a clear attempt to publicly
damage the reputation of a person. What makes the case
interesting from a legal scholar's point of view is precisely the fact
that my damages cannot be tallied financially. Rather, I argued,
that allowing a BBS to be negligent in deleting deleterious posts was
affecting my ability to carry out my "life's work" (as I put it), of
bringing about a law against racial discrimination in Japan.
Being called a White Supremacist etc. with fabricated quotes was
precisely the sort of thing that would undermine my credibility.
Does the Constitution therefore protect me against this sort of thing
or not, especially in this new medium?

FINAL WORD: I can guess
what plenty of people are thinking as they read this... Debito's
the type of guy that sues everybody, just for fun. Not
exactly. I just wasn't going to let something this malicious and
untruthful slide. Moreover, after I put this announcement out
yesterday in Japanese, other people who have seen the nasty stuff on
2-Channel, or have been the target of smear campaigns there, wrote me
back to say that it was about time somebody had the cojones to do it.

Sorry to keep you waiting. This issue got a lot of press, and just keeping up with the Japanese-language side of things has kept me busy...

FULL REPORT ON THE 2-CHANNEL LIBEL LAWSUIT VICTORY

By Arudou Debito, January 22, 2006

////////////////////////////////////////////////////1) QUICK RECAP OF THE CASE2) THE COURT DECISION3) THE REASONING4) MY FEELINGS ABOUT WHAT THIS CASE MEANS
////////////////////////////////////////////////////

This case has been fully archived (with documents submitted to court
and court decision in Japanese, my reports and kansoubun in Japanese,
and related newspaper articles) at http://www.debito.org/2channelsojou.html

////////////////////////////////////////////////////1) QUICK RECAP OF THE CASE: From
early 2004 onwards, anonymous poster(s) began systematically copying
and pasting statements on a Japanese Internet Bulletin Board System
(BBS) called "2-Channel", accessed by hundreds of thousands of people
daily, about Plaintiff Arudou Debito, a human rights activist.
Calling him inter alia a "White Supremacist", the posts, which were
added to just about any BBS thread regarding foreigners in Japan,
attributed to him by name several fabricated statements, such as "he
said he supports massacres of Iraqis", "he said he supports
discrimination against non-Whites", with the clear aim of impugning his
character and damaging his credibility in his campaign for racial
equality in Japan. Repeated requests both by electronic and
registered mail were made by Plaintiff and his lawyers to remove these
materials from the online archive, but were completely ignored by the
Administrator of 2-Channel, a Mr Nishimura Hiroyuki. The
posts in question to this day have been left up to spread further
across the Internet. After Plaintiff sued for defamation of
character, Defendant also ignored all court communiques and never
appeared in before the judge to offer any explanation or defense.
On January 20, 2006, Hokkaido's Iwamizawa District Court ruled in favor
of Plaintiff, awarding him 1,100,000 yen in damages for negligence in
the face of libel.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////

2) THE COURT DECISION

Judge Senga Tetsuro ruled largely as follows: a) Defendant Nishimura
Hiroyuki of 2-Channel must pay 1,000,000 yen in damages, and 100,000
yen in lawyer fees to Plaintiff Arudou Debito. b) Defendant must delete all contentious posts from 2-Channel's server. c) Defendant must release the IP address of contentious poster(s). d) Only item (a) above may be contested in appeal. [Defendant has two weeks to appeal.]

a) The contentious posts
involved Plaintiff by name, and had the undeniable danger of damaging
his social reputation. b) The statements within the contentious posts were of no benefit to society. c) The statements had no grounding in fact. d) The posts should have
been deleted from the BBS, but the Administrator, who has the
obligation to take measures, did not. In addition, Administrator
did not respond to requests by Plaintiff to delete the information. e) Because the
information was not deleted, and it claims he is a racist, one cannot
ignore that it has ill-effects on Plaintiff's livelihood and activism
in society. f) As per the "Provider
Responsibility Guidelines Law" (purobaidaa sekinin kisei hou), Article
2 Clause 1 (Electronic Mail Privacy), Defendant must reveal the IP
address of the person who posted said posts to the BBS. g) In sum, it is clear
that Plaintiff had his honor illegally infringed upon by information
which affected society's view of him, information which was not dealt
with in a proper manner by the BBS and which remains on display to this
day.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////

4) MY FEELINGS ABOUT WHAT THIS CASE MEANS

Well, we won, and of course I'm very happy about that. We also
won big--just about everything we asked for was granted by the
judge (the court damages were more than the Otaru Onsens Lawsuit award
of 1 million yen). More importantly, in terms of legal precedent,
even a person who cannot claim a concrete amount of monetary damage due
to defamation (I'm not a business with a clearly-affected balance
sheet, unlike previous victorious plaintiffs against 2-Channel) can
claim damage to honor. It is, arguably, a blow for human rights
(as opposed to economic rights, i.e. of a business to survive
profitably and free from defamation--which the Japanese judiciary
generally sees as more worthy of protection).

There are of course some extenuating circumstances behind this
victory. The egregious nature of 2-Channel's behavior in this
case (not answering anybody, including the court, even once) made it so
that no possible defense could have been included in the decision (the
judge makes clear on page five that 2-Channel simply had nothing to
say). This undeniably made the case a cakewalk. And the egregious nature of
the posts involved (just about every reader of Japanese I have shown
them to shudders at their nastiness) makes it clear that the freedom of
speech on the Internet does not, as we argued, give freedom to
deliberately and maliciously defame somebody with complete
untruths. This is an extreme case, and it got by Japanese
standards an extreme decision.

But 2-Channel has long since established itself as an extreme place, or
as I put it in my Japanese statement on this case, "a hotbed for the
abuse of the freedom of speech" (genron no jiyuu no ran'you no
onshou). Although local versions of 2-Channel (such as the
Hokkaido BBS) allow no private names to remain on its
databases, the national version of this site, my sources and experience
dictate, is full of rumor, exaggeration, speculation, and outright lies
about specified individuals--which remain undeleted, as my case
shows. And it's not just me: fellow human rights activists and
lawyers, for example, who have long suffered incessant impugning of
their character on 2-Channel, wrote me letters of congratulations for actually
taking them on in the first place, moreover successfully.
It's about time, they said.

Many people in the media reading this are probably
wondering if my court decision constitutes some sort of threat to free
speech. This I strongly doubt, a) because I'm sure any Japanese
judge can distinguish between information based upon fact and
unsubstantiated rumor motivated by malice, and b) because of the nature
of the media in this case. That is to say, all other media formats--print or
broadcast--have editors, registered corporations,
credibility-checkable sources, and people who are in charge and can
take responsibility if somebody goes too far.
However, in the case of the Internet, and particularly places like
BBSes, there is nobody who will take responsibility, either on the
moderator's side or on the poster's side. Thus, because there is
no editor and anyone can post anything they like (and anonymously at
that), irresponsible messages of some permanence will inevitably get
through and stick; there is simply no mechanism to clean up this
media.

What makes 2-Channel peerless in this respect is that, according to my
lawyers, it has been sued repeatedly, and lost due to negligence in
editorial policy: administrators similarly had taken no action to
remove
defamatory posts. Yet 2-Channel ignores those court decisions,
refusing
to pay severances or reveal IP addresses, and continues on as
before. How? Because unlike other media, 2-Channel's assets
are privately
owned, secretly stashed, and thus unfreezable should they lose in court
and refuse to pay. Which means the "Provider Responsibility
Guidelines Law", mentioned in the court decision, is
unenforceable unless somebody digs up Nishimura's bank accounts.
This is how 2-Channel gets away with abetting libel--by simply ignoring
the law or the courts. In sum, winning against 2-Channel will not
affect other, more responsible media, because there are mechanisms in
place there to ensure it never goes as far as it did in this case.

What happens next? There has been a lot of press (an article in every newspaper yesterday morning,
a quick discussion on the issues on NHK Friday night) on this. For
once this prominence of this case may bring public pressure to bear on
either 2-Channel to cooperate, or else pressure on lawmakers to stop
places like 2-Channel flaunting the law. But I am unconfident
that 2-Channel will cooperate with the courts and pay up, because if it
did, with the backlog of lost lawsuits, it will probably go
bankrupt. I am also unconfident that 2-Channel will obey the court
order even as far as releasing the IP addresses, even if it costs them
nothing. There's just no sanction for refusal. Then
what? We take steps to find their accounts and freeze them, we
take out an injunction (details on this process unclear to me at this time)
with heavy fines (something like 10,000 yen for every day 2-Channel
does not cooperate). But it is clear that 2-Channel is
making use of a legal grey zone to stay up and flaunt, and anonymous
posters are taking advantage of that to smear more people for sport or
malice.

How to resolve this situation? One simple thing I'm sure 2-Channel has
thought of is displaying all IP addresses whenever anyone posts.
That would pass the buck to the poster. But mysteriously
2-Channel hasn't done so (and it's too late for past court losses anyway). Japan could also, as it has done for
all media with licences and other measures for public accountability
and quality control, change regulations to require BBS administrators
and providers to publicly register their assets. I prefer a much
more sweeping reform--the establishment of a criminal law specifically
against hate speech, which Japan still lacks in violation of
international treaty. Unless there is the specific threat of
arrest, some people just won't see sense.

In any case, this court decision should cause no major policy paroxysms. The
mass media has been around for a while, and systems have long since
evolved to ensure quality control and prevent the innocent from getting
hurt. With this new communication system, where anyone with an
Internet connection can by bypass the editorial process instantaneously
on widespread archived media, it's high time to take steps guaranteeing
some form of responsibility in information dispersal. Yes, a law
was passed on it in 2002, but clearly it has some holes it which need
plugging. Hopefully this case will help highlight where some of
them are.

Table of contents:
==============================================1) QUICK RECAP OF THE CASE2) WHAT IS 2-CHANNEL? REFERENTIAL LINKS3) THE ISSUE4) THE UPDATE5) WHY THIS DESERVES MEDIA ATTENTION6) APOLOGIA: What of issues of free speech?7) CONTACTS
==============================================

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////1) QUICK RECAP OF THE CASE:
From early 2004 onwards, anonymous poster(s) began systematically
copying and pasting statements on a Japanese Internet Bulletin Board
System (BBS) called "2-Channel", Japan's most popular website, with
around one million posts and 20 million hits per day. Said
statements were about Plaintiff Arudou Debito, a human rights activist
in Japan. Calling him inter alia a "White Supremacist", the
posts, which were added to just about any BBS thread regarding
foreigners in Japan, attributed to him by name several fabricated
statements, such as "he said he supports massacres of Iraqis", "he said
he supports discrimination against non-Whites", with the clear aim of
impugning his character and damaging his credibility in his campaign
for racial equality in Japan.

Repeated requests both by electronic and registered mail were made by
Plaintiff and his lawyers to remove these materials from the online
archive, but were completely ignored by the founder and administrator
of 2-Channel, a Mr Nishimura Hiroyuki. The posts in question to
this day have been left up to spread further across the Internet.
After Plaintiff sued for defamation of character, Defendant ignored all
court communiques, and never appeared in before the judge to offer any
explanation or defense. On January 20, 2006, Hokkaido's Iwamizawa
District Court ruled in favor of Plaintiff, awarding him 1,100,000 yen
in damages for negligence in the face of libel, and ordered 2-Channel
to remove all the libelous posts. However, Nishimura continued to
ignore court orders, forcing Plaintiff's legal team to take further
litigious steps to enforce the court decision. Update below.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The damage done: Do a Google search on"Arudouinkuru", "Iraku"
(both in katakana) and "2ch" (to eliminate most genuine news sites),
and you will see that as of today there are more than 1000 sites with
the abovementioned libelous posts. This is around double the
number of sites with the posts when the decision came down in January,
which means that 2-Channel has taken no steps whatsoever to follow the
court order.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////

THE ISSUE: Does
a media outlet, owned and run by an individual (as opposed to a
corporate entity with a tax home and registered assets), have to take
responsibility when anonymous users make false, damaging, and
irresponsible public claims about people? The Iwamizawa District
Court ruled yes. But what if the Defendant, even after losing,
refuses to follow the court decision to either a) pay the damages, or
b) remove the libel? This is where the case diverges from issues
of "freedom of speech", and into questions regarding the ability of
Japan's judiciary to enforce its own court decisions.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////

UPDATE: Eight months
after the verdict, I can now release information about what further
measures we have taken. These steps, although they have brought
us no closer to getting damages from Nishimura, illustrate what legal
loopholes a new media can exploit to evade responsibility, and expose
the need for legislation to deal with the problem.

TIMELINE:Jan 20, 2006: Iwamizawa District Court decision for Plaintiff Arudou.Feb 3: Deadline passes for Defendant Nishimura to appeal; no response.Mar 29: We file motion (saiken sashi osae moushi tate) with Tokyo District Court to seize Nishimura's assets at his company, Tokyo Plus KK.Apr 5: We file motion (kansetsu kyousei moushi tate)
with Iwamizawa District Court to force Nishimura's to follow the court
decision, with a compounding financial penalty for every day the
decision is not carried out.Apr 7: Tokyo District Court grants motion of Mar 29.Apr 11: Registered
communiques from Tokyo District Court to Tokyo Plus KK returned
unopened because nobody went to the post office to claim them. We
refile motion.Apr 28: Registered
communiques from Tokyo District Court again returned unopened.
(We drop motion against Tokyo Plus KK on Jul 14 to contact a different
company.) Also, Apr 5 motion from Iwamizawa District Court
returned unopened.Jun 30: We file separate
motion with Tokyo District Court to seize Nishimura's assets at another
one of his companies connected with 2-Channel, KK Niwango. Jul 20: Tokyo District Court grants motion of Jun 30.Jul 27: KK Niwango
answers motion in official court statement: denies paying
Nishimura any salary, therefore has no assets to seize.

And that's it. Which means all Nishimura and his corporate allies
have to do is ignore orders from the court (by not officially receiving
them, therefore not being "served with papers"), or else deny that
there is any financial connection between them, and Nishimura can avoid
taking any responsibility. No police will arrest Nishimura
(because this is a Civil Court case, not a violation of the Criminal
Code), and there is apparently no enforcement of contempt of
court. Also, there is no judicial oversight commission in Japan
which can audit or raid the companies, or ferret out Nishimura's bank
accounts. (In fact it becomes Plaintiff's responsibility, at his
own expense, to hire a private detective--for around 500,000 yen, with
no guarantee of success).

This is the route taken by Nishimura so far in the thousands of (many
successful) lawsuits raised against him. If you want to sue
2-Channel, you have to sue its representative, as the company is
registered to him individually. But you cannot find his assets,
because they are not properly registered (like they would be for any
other established non-cyberspace media outlet). He technically
has no income, and only he knows his bank accounts (which may be under
different names or untraceable titles). Meanwhile, Nishimura can
continue to meet media, write books, make public speeches, and get away
with running a venue that causes social damage judged illegal by a
court. All because Japan's court system is unempowered with the
investigative mechanisms to enforce its own court rulings, or equipped
with cyberspace-specific legislation to keep the media clean.

Point is: Nishimura had his day in court. He lost. Now pay up.

Now that we have exhausted all judicial means (we can only file more
papers against more companies, and they answer at their whim, again
with no judicial sanction), our next step is for me to bring the
problem to the fore, and hope we get some media attention.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////

WHY THIS DESERVES MEDIA ATTENTION

Because this is not the only place in which Japan's judiciary has
loopholes. Civil Court decisions are often unenforced, and short
of filing angry letters, the judiciary won't get the police
involved. Other cases, such as issues of child custody and
support (two I know something about), are also without legal sanctions
of enforcement.

However, with media attention, legislative remedies can occur.
For example, in the bad old days, there was no way, say, to force a
deadbeat spouse to pay child support if he kept his bank accounts
secret; after some awareness raising by journalists, now there is a law
which says you can force the spouse's employer to pay alimony directly
from his salary. This is what press coverage does for social
problems, and I believe my case uncovers one. I will also be
sending this issue to the domestic press in due course.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////

APOLOGIA:
Many readers in the media are probably wondering if my court decision
constitutes some sort of threat to free speech. This I strongly
doubt because for two reasons. One:
Remember that this passed through a court of law. I'm sure any
Japanese judge can distinguish between information based upon fact and
unsubstantiated rumor motivated by malice--especially given the general
cautiousness of Japanese judges. Two:
Consider the nature of the media in this case--the
Internet. All other media formats--print or broadcast--have
editors, registered corporations, credibility-checkable sources, and
people who are in charge and can take responsibility if somebody goes
too far. However, with the Internet, and in particular
places like anonymous Bulletin Boards, there is nobody who will take
responsibility, either on the moderator's side or on the poster's
side. Thus, with complete poster anonymity, coupled with a media
which will not delete libel, irresponsible messages of some permanence
will inevitably get through and stick; there is simply no mechanism to
clean things up.

What makes 2-Channel peerless in this respect is that, according to my
lawyers, it has been sued repeatedly, and lost in court due to
negligence. Yet 2-Channel can ignore those court decisions, refusing to
pay severances or reveal IP addresses, and letting the libel
stick. How? Because, again, unlike other media, 2-Channel's
assets are privately owned, secretly stashed, and thus unfreezeable
should they lose in court and refuse to pay. Which means Japan's
"Provider Responsibility Guidelines Law", mentioned in the court
decision, is unenforceable.

In sum, winning against 2-Channel will not affect other, more
responsible media, because other media has mechanisms in place to
ensure it never goes as far.

I updated you last week (http://www.debito.org/index.php/?p=30
) about my lawsuit against Japan's largest Internet BBS,
2-Channel. Although they lost a libel suit to me last January,
Owner and Adminstrator Defendant Nishimura Hiroyuki still hasn't paid
the court-ordered damages, and has ignored another series of paperwork
we have filed to enforce the decision. Full details on the
lawsuit at http://www.debito.org/2channelsojou.html#english

The news is that I just heard that Nishimura, with his invisible
income, numerous personal blogs and online columns, and books published
by the likes of Kodansha and Asukii, has made himself invisible.
Witness this newspaper article (translation mine):

============== BEGINS ==================On September 22,
it was established that Nishimura Hiroyuki (29), aka "hiroyuki",
administrator and operator of giant Internet BBS "2-Channel", has
disappeared (shissou joutai). This BBS is being run by Nishimura
as an individual. Even after government organs have demanded that
inappropriate posts be removed, and posters have their whereabouts
revealed, [Nishimura] has let these things slide and not responded to
orders to appear before courts. The worst case scenario is that
"2-Channel", an emblematic site to Internet industries, may even be
shut down.
=============== ENDS ===================

I don't know where this article appeared (it looks like a screen
capture from a TV news show), but it is genuine. See for yourself:

I have also heard rumors that Nishimura was about to declare personal
bankruptcy, and has a gaggle of lawsuits following him to zap any
above-board income (royalties etc.) he might legally receive.
However, he'll never be able to open and register a real company, and
if he does reappear and declare himself bankrupt, he'll apparently even
lose the right to vote.

For the record, I do not support closing 2-Channel down (it is for most
a very valuable network). I only want it to take responsibility
for filling the media with irresponsible information, so bad that even
Japan's cautious courts have determined in several cases to be
libelous. Continuous evasion of these responsibilities as a
member of the media may mean Nishimura gets his in the end. Keep
a weather eye on this story... ENDS

訴状全文

以上判決全文（岩見沢地方裁判所２００６年１月２０日付）

以上

FOLLOWUP DOCUMENTS FOR 2-CHANNEL LAWSUIT
TRYING TO GET DEFENDANT NISHIMURA TO PAY UP (March to July 2006)THE TIMELINE (written by lawyer Shiba-ike Toshiteru):
債権差押命令１ 06.3.29 (東京地裁 第三債務者 東京プラス（株））
MOTION WITH TOKYO DISTRICT COURT TO SEIZE NISHIMURA'S ASSETS AT HIS COMPANY, TOKYO PLUS KK
TOKYO DISTRICT COURT GRANTS MAR 29 06 MOTION
債権差押命令 06.4.7
COURT ORDER TO TOKYO PLUS KK IS RETURNED AS UNDELIVERABLE, OUR REAPPLICATION
第三債務者へ送達されず、再送達の上申書提出 06.4.11
WE WITHDRAW MOTION AGAINST TOKYO PLUS KK TO FILE NEW MOTION AGAINST KK NIWANGO
依然送達されず、債権差押命令（（株）ニワンゴと）との兼ね合いから、取り下げた 06.7.14 (その書類へスキップ）
MOTION WITH IWAMIZAWA DISTRICT COURT, HOKKAIDO, FOR "KANSETSU KYOUSEI"
AGAINST DEFENDANT NISHIMURA, WITH COMPOUNDING FINANCIAL PENALTY FOR
EVERY DAY THAT COURT DECISION IS NOT FOLLOWED
間接強制申立 06.4.5
KANSETSU KYOUSEI TO DEFENDANT NISHIMURA IS RETURNED AS UNDELIVERABLE, OUR REAPPLICATION
第三債務者へ送達されず、再送達の上申書提出 06.4.28
債権差押命令１ 06.6.30 (東京地裁 第三債務者 （株）ニワンゴ）
MOTION WITH TOKYO DISTRICT COURT TO SEIZE NISHIMURA'S ASSETS AT RELATED COMPANY, KK NIWANGO
MOTION GRANTED BY TOKYO DISTRICT COURT AGAINST KK NIWANGO
債権差押命令 06.7.20
OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM KK NIWANGO, INDICATING THEY ARE NOT REMUNERATING DEFENDANT NISHIMURA, THEREFORE NO ASSETS TO SEIZE
第三債権者（（株）ニワンゴ）からの陳述書届いた 06.7.27 （債務者へは送達されず）
ENDS